Argos aims to circulate writing about topical matters of public and political import that is local, critical and accessible. We believe critical intellectual conversation should be heard here in Aotearoa-New Zealand, not simply published for credit in international fora for more limited and specialised audiences. Of particular interest to us is writing that grounds its concern with the public or political good of place-making in theory or philosophy.

Notice:

This website is designed to be used by modern, enabled browsers and will not function correctly otherwise. Please ensure you are using the latest version of your browser, and that you have javascript enabled!

joy

by Argos as You as Argos

...the delight which falls out of being taught back-to-front with a naturally chaotic beat. step-by-step instructions guide us towards some form of nebulous activity as we daily play with learning, prioritising line, rhythm and joy. the function of a function subtly de-forms, fizzing in my setting blood as I remember all these failures. simply skipping every moment to accord and match-up means a playtime not distant, not puffed up but here....

...to balance it with an excess of legalism, decorum and nostalgic form. By contrast, an 'Atenisi graduation celebration does not stand on ceremony. There are no dour processions to organ music. The Tongan word malie expresses a joyful harmony that also intensifies the surrounding social order. Visiting lecturers from western societies often fret around graduation times at 'Atenisi because preparations for the big event seem to be too casual or unhu...

...A History of the UfSO – A Memoir The revolution brings fine weather. Maybe. This wasn’t a revolution but it was a beautiful day nonetheless, a really beautiful day, it was the beginning. Everyone was pretty angry, but joyful with it. We didn’t know each other then, weaving in and out, bumping into each other, coming together, then apart again. A huge crowd, far bigger than anyone had forecast, tumbled and roared and bowled through the str...

...ll the while, with rankings and targets in view. Such tensions are smoothed over, however, and readers are encouraged to embrace the plan’s patterned contraries: efficiency and democracy, outputs and spontaneity, strategy and joy. Above all else, the plan offers up the perfectly empty experience of ‘excellence’. Mission The real University of Auckland sits on Ngāti Whātua land and understands its own existence in light of this long and ongoing h...

Introduction We are coming to a decision point of fundamental importance to how we understand our work and ways in New Zealand universities. Do we value Māori and Pasifika students only because they are so often represented as being needy, underachieving, and disadvantaged minority groups, those who are the focus of government investment approaches geared to improving education outcomes? Or is there an alternative based on recognising the cont...

...form, defuse, assume power in alternate forms, and so on. We say: perform the university, emulate it, occupy it, teach it with an 'eye [. . .] that sees possibility ever', in the words of our epigraph. This is the joy of rule- making and rule-breaking—after all, humanum est errare: 'to err is human.' In and though such activity, the university turns out to be many worlds: a pluriversity. Its future is what we make of it....

...student movement. In such a context, when in late 2011 hundreds of students at the University of Auckland embarked on a series of occupations and protests, the response of the New Zealand Minister of Tertiary Education Steven Joyce that the protests ‘didn’t add up to me’ seemed naively innocent if not ignorant of global developments in the higher education sector. If there is a positive side to the financial crisis that came to public attent...